Virtualities and Realities, RIXC Festival, in Riga

Hello!

we are happy to announce that the RIXC festival and the 2nd Open Fields conference in Riga is approaching! This year, the festival and conference with the title Virtualities and Realities will take place from October 19-21, 2017,

and we also have extended the Early Bird registration till September 30, 2017!
more info: http://festival2017.rixc.org

VIRTUALITIES AND REALITIES is the theme of this year’s RIXC Art Science festival and the 2nd Open Fields conference taking place in Riga, Latvia, aiming to establish a space for artistic interventions and conversations about the complex implications of immersive technologies.

This year’s festival programme features Public Keynotes, the 2nd Open Fields Conference sessions, AR/VR Showcases, Exhibitions and Performances. RIXC Festival is internationally renowned gathering for artists and scholars working at the intersection of arts, digital humanities and science.

The main festival events will take place from October 19–21, 2017, in some of Riga’s most visible art venues – the Conference will take place in the Art Academy of Latvia, and the Latvian National Museum of Art, while the exhibitions – in kim? Contemporary Art Centre and RIXC Gallery spaces.

Immersive technologies coupled with superior virtual environments, artificial intelligence algorithms, faster processors, and biometrics are launching a new era in virtual experiences, entertainment and story-telling. At the same time these technologies have the potential for reinforcing stereotypes, contributing to massive economic and social disruptions, and implementing new systems of invasive monitoring and control.

What do these new developments in VR/AR mean for education, entertainment, social policy, and systems of codified knowledge? Like their predecessors the telephone, television, and mobile phone, what are the impending new vistas and reduced horizons?

Biometrics and the uploading and tracking of personal data spans areas from healthcare to advertising, with implications for law, criminal justice, entertainment (gaming), education and sports. Machine learning and algorithms are harvesting and making use of big data in new and startling ways. Some of it allows pinpoint accuracy in determining issues of public health, economics, climate change, story-telling, political leanings and the migration of populations. What does all this data combined with new technologies mean? What are some current and future artistic strategies that deal with this? Combined with the acceleration of VR/AR and technologies of immersion, how will societies react?

Taking place in the framework of RISK CHANGE EU Creative Europe’s project, various festival events will explore relations between “virtualities” and “realities” in our post-media society. The Open Fields conference will discuss the socio-cultural and neurobiological impacts of virtual and augmented reality, and other immersive technologies. The conference participants will also look at the places and movements from a socio-political perspective, the mapping and charting of migrating cultures particularly people and their data traces.

The conference will be complemented by the festival exhibition that will explore the changing role of art in society, its transformative potential, and its relations to the sciences, especially focusing on neomateriality, new aesthetics and other critical qualities of the post-digital.

The 2nd Open Fields conference will take place in October 19-21, 2017, in Riga, Latvia, in two venues (which are closely each to other) — the Art Academy of Latvia, and the Latvian National Museum of Art.

The Open Fields conference is the annual gathering in Riga, Latvia, for international scholars and artists working at the intersection of arts, humanities and science. The conference was launched in 2016 with the aim to create the Nordic-Baltic region based platform for artistic research. It is a part of the annual RIXC Art Science festival, and it is closely connected to the festival exhibition that every year showcases the most innovative artwork and artistic research projects. The 1st Open Fields conference edition took place in Riga, October 2016, gathering together 120 participants from 30 countries worldwide. The conference is complemented by the exhibition and closely linked to it, as the conference also aims to reflect upon artistic practice and research in the age of post-media and post-digital, whereby inventing new taxonomies and shaping new contact zones between art, science, technology and social engagement.

This year we received more than 260 compelling conference and exhibition proposals from around the world, out of which conference organizational board selected 80 proposals for the conference, and 20 for the exhibition. Overall, this year we expect more than 100 participants from 35 countries, representing more than 60 universities, art centers, museums, institutions and companies, as well as independent artists, scientists and scholars from different fields, who work with immersive technologies, experiment with augmented and virtual reality, discuss future of digital and data aesthetics, whereby exploring complex relations between the “virtualities” and “realities” in our post-media society.

The main festival exhibition will feature the most innovative artworks that experiment with augmented and virtual reality, create immersive environments, and explore complex relations between the “virtualities” and “realities” of our post-media society with its networked communities and migrating cultures.

Parallel Exhibitions:
Parallel exhibitions related to the festival theme on Virtualities and Realities, will be also on view in both RIXC gallery spaces: FLUCTUATIONS OF MICROWORLDS by Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits will be on show in Lencu iela 2, and DATA.LOGS by artist collective Trihars — in 11. novembra krastmala 35. More information available at http://rixc.org

The papers by conference participants will be published in conference proceeding, which will come out in the Acoustic Space, (double blind) peer-reviewed journal & book series. The call for full paper submissions will be announced shortly after the conference on the Acoustic Space journal website, in November 2017.
http://acousticspacejournal.com

The new issue of Acoustic Space (Vol. 16) – RENEWABLE FUTURES. Art, Science and Society in the Post-Media Age , edited by Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits in tribute to Armin Medosch (1962-2017) has been published recently, and it will be presented at the closing day of the conference – during the OPEN FIELDS BOOK-REVIEW session.

The Open Fields Book-Review is a dynamic open participation session in Pecha Kucha format (20×20), during which conference speakers and exhibition artists have an opportunity to present their recent or upcoming books. The Book-Review by authors will take place on October 21, 2017 at 17.00 at the Art Academy of Latvia.

The Festival is produced by RIXC / Riga, Latvia in collaboration with Risk Change / Creative Europe’s project partners.

The Conference is organized by RIXC / Riga in collaboration with the Renewable Futures network, and Art-A-Hack / New York, and Hybrid Lab Nordplus project academic partners: Liepaja University, Aalto University and HiOA, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences.